More AQS Show Pearls and a Giveaway!!

One of the nicest, most genuine people I met at the AQS Charlotte show was Jamie Wallen. His youtube videos literally saved my sanity when I was having trouble with my longarm tensions. Warm, caring, and wonderfully encouraging, Jamie shares everything he can about free motion quilting, cramming an 8-hour course into 3 hours.

His ruler design is great, with an angled handle that makes it easy to control. Several of us tested this theory in another class using both a flat ruler and one with a perpendicular handle. Neither of these were as easy to control as the ones from Jamie’s line, Quilters Apothecary. I got both a straight edge and a curved edge ruler.

One of the pearls of wisdom from Jamie was this – if you break a titanium needle, it will not break cleanly. It shatters. If this happens to you, be sure you take out the old broken needle, remove your bobbin case, and flood the bobbin hook shuttle with machine oil to flush out the shards. Then while the needle is still out, run the machine slowly to work the oil around and get the tiny shrapnel out, wipe off the hook then reinsert your bobbin and a new needle. Jamie says this will prevent damage to the bobbin case and shuttle hook mechanism.

His designs were just stunning, and I wrote to ask what I might show on the blog. Jamie and Rich generously said to share whatever I wanted. So here are a couple of his beautiful designs.

Stunning aren’t they?!!! Jamie uses a water soluble marking pen in blue, and removes the marks with Sew Clean. I tried this at home (of course I had to get a bottle from Jamie and Rich at the show) and it works great. Plus it has a nice citrus scent.

He had lots of designs to show us, impossible to soak up all he had to offer in three hours. Did you know that wool battings will prevent creases in your quilts? I didn’t! Another pearl!! I will need to investigate wool batting!!

So, we got to draw for a bit, then sew a bit on the Gammill machines set up for us. I wish I had taken a picture of the set up. There were eight 12-foot tables with two longarms on each one, so 16 spots to practice! Jamie says it takes 6-8 hours of practice for a design to be smooth, so practice first. I just got a whiteboard that I’ll keep next to my chair to practice shapes in the evenings. Here’s part of my practice piece.

He also taught us how to do these delightful bleeding hearts. I just loved these and they weren’t as hard as you might think.

If you’d like to learn from Jamie, see his free videos at Jamie Wallen Quilting Videos. I highly recommend these videos especially the one on longarm tension!! If you ever have a chance to see him in person, go!!

Now to the giveaway!! While I was at the AQS show in Jamie’s class, I received this neat gift from Gammill, in fact I got more than one since I took more than one class in the room with the Gammill machines. The little kit has an 8 x 10-inch lunch bag sized tote, a beautiful set of silver and gold tone thread snips, needle gripper key chain, tape measure, retractable snip lanyard, a chapstick for lips, a four piece nail emery board and smoother, and a spritz hand sanitizer.

So, I will give one away to a faithful reader! If you are a follower of my blog, just leave a comment on this post, any tip or comment on quilting or Jamie’s videos, and how you follow to be entered in the random drawing on Friday afternoon. International entries welcome!! Good luck!! Sorry, giveaway has been done, but stay tuned, there will be more.

I would like to try a longarm machine. I do my FMQing on my domestic machine. I keep quilt sandwiches by my machine. They are always ready when I start a new project to practice on first. I definitely dislike picking out stitches on my quilt so I always practice first. Thanks for the chance to win.

Love Jamie’s tutorials! My fav is his spiral tutorial. He has just a slightly different spin on the beginning curves that really does work well 🙂 I am a lover of wool! It’s all I use now. . . just bought a roll. . . I think you will love it both for the non crease and also because it is a dream to quilt! I follow on Bloglovin’.

My fondest wish: a Gammill or AQS longarm. Perhaps it will need to be one of the sit down ones in a few years, sigh! Thanks for sharing, love your emails and I only get yours and Bonnie Hunter’s blog, so much to inspire and encourage!

Jamie is correct about the wool batting. I have used it several times..we were at the AQS show and DH won the same door prize at the Gammill booth. They said who’s birthday is on the 15th.. He was the only one. It was so funny. He does quilt a little, but I run the longarm.

So wish I had a longarm! Jamie Wallen is the best – several years ago he quilted a number of quilts for me. I will cherish them always as the quilting is unbelievable. I love your blog and thanks for sharing Jamie.skeshlaman@comcast.net

I love his videos, he makes it look so easy and I’ve done a few of his examples and was able to do them as well!! I just purchased one of his rulers yesterday and look forward to trying it out next week. Thank you for the chance.

Oh how I wish I could have been there! I love Jamie Wallen! I found him recently, just after I had warped my bobbin case, and he showed me how to fix it. I ordered his de-wraper, it is great. I love the tension video also, he definately has a artistic gift. I bought one of the rulers also, I plan to buy more. I have the flat rulers and find they cause tension in my shoulders, I am trying to hold on too tight I guess, Jamie’s ruler is so stable with the angled handle. he has wonder suggestions for us to help with our neck and posture. I really appreciated that video I wish HE was going to Chattanooga, Tn, but I didn’t see him on the class list, I hoped to see him there. I can’t wait for a class with him!!

Thanks for all the info, Carole. I’ve never heard of Jamie so will be sure to check out his videos as his quilting is inspiring and I didn’t know that about wool batting either. Thanks for rejuvinating this helpful post under our long arm quilting theme this week!!

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